I totally agree! Apple is selling this idea to idiots in hopes of locking everyone into their own application environment in which they would receive a large piece of the pie for absolutely no work whatsoever. This is all about money. Actually, its down right extortion.

From your previous post, I can tell you don't know what you're talking about (not even close).
From this post, I can tell you have an axe to grind.
==> Added to ignore list.

Instead, each app displays the files it knows about at launch for the user to navigate through directly.

How is that lock-in? If I open an app it sees all filetypes it can handle. This article says nothing about sandboxing documents to a single app.

Yes, the article does say this:

Rather than iPad apps saving their documents into a wide open file system, apps on iPad save all their documents within their own installation directory. Delete the app and you'll clean out all of its related files. This is how the iPhone OS already works.

"Isnt it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?" - douglas adams

Ok that's fine, but I doubt that there will be a button in iPad Mail that will say "open with 'Documents-to-go (current iPhone app)' or 'XXX made up PDF editor' or 'YYY made up photo editor' or 'ZZZ other made up App store app.' There will probably only be an option to open with Apple's own apps, which is not a great thing.

There could just be an "open with" menu... like right clicking on a file in Mac OS X. I don't know. I can't imagine that Apple wouldn't think of these same issues along with solutions to them. So I'm not too worried. Plus... I don't see the traditional files and folders model disappearing anytime soon anyway. I'm sure it will be around for a LOOONG time to come. But it might be that such systems would end up being used mostly by pros while "the rest of us" (mom, dad, your neighbour, not techie friends... etc.) move to a more app-centric model... since that would be easier for them and all they really need for what they would be doing (email, surfing, photos, etc.).

He's just talking about how he uses his Mac today, to find content; i.e., he doesn't dig through the file system but rather uses the associated app (iPhone, iTunes, etc.) or Spotlight to find the file for him. He's not talking about how the iPhone/iPad would work.

Obviously. But he added the comment to a discussion about the filesystem of the iPad. By relating that to the desktop iTunes/iPhoto/etc apps and then pointing out the limitations of those apps (having to drag a file to the desktop, thus making a copy of it, in order to use it in another application) you are also pointing out the limitation of the iPad filesystem if you wanted it to become a device capable of more complex usage.

Quote:

Originally Posted by illimiter

The iPhone does have built-in search that searches the entire phone. If they really wanted to add tags to link files between apps, then you could use the search app to list all those files.

And rather then repeatedly typing my search over and over again, you'll give me saved searches. Which is now a folder. Yes, a Smart Folder, but still a folder.

I'm not saying it's a bad system. It's good. But it has it's limitations.

This mangles the concept of projects. When Im doing video work Ill have files from a variety of applications collocated in a centralized directory: DV/AVCHD/mov video; FCE/FCP sequences; jpg/TIF/PSD images; PDF; AIFF/MP3 audio; etc.

Now I realize that the iPad does not currently support video creation at all. But other kinds of projects can also require files from various apps.

I dont see how the app=file type library or file system can make this work. So is the iPad truly not to be compatible with or usable for content creation, and is just to be a viewer? Maybe so. Have to think about that.

What you're seeing on the current, not yet released iPad, is OS 3.2. We'll have to wait until ver 4.0 is released late in June. There could very well be major additions to the file system as well as multitasking and other features.

This mangles the concept of projects. When Im doing video work Ill have files from a variety of applications collocated in a centralized directory: DV/AVCHD/mov video; FCE/FCP sequences; jpg/TIF/PSD images; PDF; AIFF/MP3 audio; etc.

Now I realize that the iPad does not currently support video creation at all. But other kinds of projects can also require files from various apps.

I dont see how the app=file type library or file system can make this work. So is the iPad truly not to be compatible with or usable for content creation, and is just to be a viewer? Maybe so. Have to think about that.

I think the principle is that users don't need to be aware of where their files are stored, and applications are able to find all of the objects they've worked on. This doesn't mean that everything must actually be stored with the app, or that everything an app makes must disappear with it. Sharing copies of things to common pools is easy (e.g., photos and videos from many iPhone apps already go into the photos database). That may be the only kind of sharing that's done at first.

Yes, the article does say this:
Rather than iPad apps saving their documents into a wide open file system, apps on iPad save all their documents within their own installation directory. Delete the app and you'll clean out all of its related files. This is how the iPhone OS already works.

True; apps will normally save documents into their own file area. That doesn't mean that files are necessarily off-limits to other apps. For example, photo editing apps on the iPhone can open photos in the Photo Album.

More than likely, they'll have something like GarageBand for iPad, and iMovie for iPad, etc. In those apps, I imagine they will allow some kind media sharing between apps. But I doubt there will ever be any pro-level, or semi-pro-level media creation workflow tools.

Don't be so sure about that. With the iPad it's obvious that the OS is at the beginning of major power upgrades. We're going to see many OS X developers jump on this. As the computer becomes more powerful over the next few years, it will be able to handle more powerful apps. Apple has shown in a patent a movie editing program as one of the uses it will be put to.

There is a question right now as to whether this is a two or four core cpu. No doubt when they move to 32nm, as this is expected to be run on 45 nm, we'll see less power and more speed.

This is already faster than the first Mac I ever used for Photoshop and movie editing.

I can see this, at 22 nm having dual cpu's each with four cores, and a much better GPU, 64 to 256 GB Flash, and a number of expanded technical specs.

Lightweight pro use will be possible, just as we used the now considered to be very slow G4 laptops to do pro work several years ago.

I fully expect this line to be Apple's new consumer OS, creeping up to the low pro level in just a few years. Maybe faster than we expect.

Yes it's true, it has nothing to do with MobileMe, for now. It's all about finding files in a generic sort of way. But I was looking waaay down the line. With only 16 gig for the base model (the one I'm interested in), I'm sure i'll use up the space with all of my music, books, magazines, data, etc, etc, etc.. Sooner or later I'll want to have a place to go. Someone on another thread mentioned the cloud concept. I thought it was a great idea.

So we throw everything into one big pile somewhere and leave it up to Apple to retrieve what we need. Just what my dear old grandma was looking for. But sooner or later, regardless how it's stored, these grandmas have to work with this data. What do I tell her then?

Don't get me wrong. I think the concept bounced around of leaving the retrieval of the data to Apple is great. I was just looking for an out just in case she wanted to hang on to this data. if it's all jumbled in a format that Apple can see. How do I save it from a cloud into a file system I understand? Maybe I'm too far down the road. Maybe I'll have to wait 90 days to sort all this out.

True; apps will normally save documents into their own file area. That doesn't mean that files are necessarily off-limits to other apps. For example, photo editing apps on the iPhone can open photos in the Photo Album.

Yes, but the Photos app is the only one which works this way. For example you can not open a Notes file with any other document editor. Well anyways, I hope that you are right that they'll enable this on OS 4.0, because this is a very important issue for iPad's usability.

"Isnt it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?" - douglas adams

If I delete the application, the files are deleted too? So if a file can be opened with more than one app, and I delete the app, the files are deleted? If I need to reinstall a program, the files are deleted? This sounds scary. Wow, if I create something in iWork and an iPad version of MSOffice is created, I can't delete iWork without losing my documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. Wow! I hope this isn't the case.

I totally agree! Apple is selling this idea to idiots in hopes of locking everyone into their own application environment in which they would receive a large piece of the pie for absolutely no work whatsoever. This is all about money. Actually, its down right extortion.

Yes, that is precisely what they are doing. Just look at iPhoto or iTunes as an example. Hardly any 3rd party photo apps can access iPhoto's library. By the time those apps became available (years for iPhoto) people were essentially locked in as they are not going to reconstruct their albums and slideshows. The same with iTunes.

And the comments regarding commingled file types in a folder are an issue. As a couch potato's dream, perhaps its ok. As a trend it will quite an adjustment for people. Metadata is hardly the answer. Who wants to mess with yet more labels? That's what files and a Finder that can sort are all about.

Ah, tagging and meta-data. I had this awesome idea for a filesystem using only tagging. But you would want a GUI to allow you to easily tag files: say, a set of icons where, when you dragged the file over that icon, it was instantly tagged with that category. And when, say, you double-clicked on the tagging icon, all the files so tagged would appear in a window. If you were just tagging the file with one tag, it should disappear after you have dragged it over the file-type icon. But if you wanted to tag it with multiple types, you could maybe hold the command and option buttons (or something slick with multitouch) to tag it with multiple types. Of course, it would be nice to unify this GUI with some sort of visual metaphor, say the top of your familiar work desk, with each tagging icon perhaps represented by a similarly concrete spatial metaphor, such as a stylized folder sitting on said desk's top...

Instead, each app displays the files it knows about at launch for the user to navigate through directly.

How is that lock-in? If I open an app it sees all filetypes it can handle. This article says nothing about sandboxing documents to a single app.

But the document IS sandboxed if you can only open it up in the app environment and not save it somewhere on the filesystem for storage purposes. What if I want to email the file? How will mail attach a document to be sent? Or how do I upload a file through Safari?

I totally agree! Apple is selling this idea to idiots in hopes of locking everyone into their own application environment in which they would receive a large piece of the pie for absolutely no work whatsoever. This is all about money. Actually, its down right extortion.

I think that's a bit harsh. I also have reason to believe that things will be more sophisticated than what some people think it will be.

This is just the first iteration. This summer we'll see a major OS upgrade with 4. Don't forget that this is just a point update from 3.1 to get it running on the iPad. It's very unlikely that Apple isn't adding a good deal of work to this OS.

I've a suspicion that a fair amount of the complaints here will be addressed by that. There are also things that we're finding out about this now that the presentation is over. For example, this will print to networked printers.

There are also other things we won't know until these get into the hands of reviewers in a few weeks, such as;

Will the photo input accessory kit with its USB 2 adapter and SD card adapter allow storage BACK to them, or just FROM them?

What about the 30 pin connector coming out of the docks?

A lot of interesting stuff to find out. I wouldn't get worked up about it yet.

That's an Apple application file so it will have system wide recognition.

That could be true but then that sucks because it means that apps won't be able to use files from other, non-Apple apps. Right now that's the main difference I see between the iPad (and iPhone) and an actual computer, and I don't like it.

"Isnt it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?" - douglas adams

Yes, that is precisely what they are doing. Just look at iPhoto or iTunes as an example. Hardly any 3rd party photo apps can access iPhoto's library. By the time those apps became available (years for iPhoto) people were essentially locked in as they are not going to reconstruct their albums and slideshows. The same with iTunes.

And the comments regarding commingled file types in a folder are an issue. As a couch potato's dream, perhaps its ok. As a trend it will quite an adjustment for people. Metadata is hardly the answer. Who wants to mess with yet more labels? That's what files and a Finder that can sort are all about.

Why is Apple giving me a reason to move over to the upcoming slate or a netbook running Linux? WHY! What's next Apple? Are you going to tell me that I have to put ice cream in a cone instead of a cup?

OMG... relax. Change the frequency. LOL :P Do you really think OS X is going to go away anytime soon? No one is forcing you to use an iPad. I'm sure that Pros will continue to use a full blown OS for decades to come.

I think that's a bit harsh. I also have reason to believe that things will be more sophisticated than what some people think it will be.

This is just the first iteration. This summer we'll see a major OS upgrade with 4. Don't forget that this is just a point update from 3.1 to get it running on the iPad. It's very unlikely that Apple isn't adding a good deal of work to this OS.

I've a suspicion that a fair amount of the complaints here will be addressed by that. There are also things that we're finding out about this now that the presentation is over. For example, this will print to networked printers.

There are also other things we won't know until these get into the hands of reviewers in a few weeks, such as;

Will the photo input accessory kit with its USB 2 adapter and SD card adapter allow storage BACK to them, or just FROM them?

What about the 30 pin connector coming out of the docks?

A lot of interesting stuff to find out. I wouldn't get worked up about it yet.

OMG... relax. Change the frequency. LOL :P Do you really think OS X is going to go away anytime soon? No one is forcing you to use an iPad. I'm sure that Pros will continue to use a full blown OS for decades to come.

I'm unsure what you mean by hardly any, but I regularly use about a dozen readily available 3rd party digital editing and manipulation applications that utilize the iPhoto library without restrictions.

I'm unsure what you mean by hardly any, but I regularly use about a dozen readily available 3rd party digital editing and manipulation applications that utilize the iPhoto library without restrictions.

Ok that's fine, but I doubt that there will be a button in iPad Mail that will say "open with 'Documents-to-go (current iPhone app)' or 'XXX made up PDF editor' or 'YYY made up photo editor' or 'ZZZ other made up App store app.' There will probably only be an option to open with Apple's own apps, which is not a great thing.

I have access to iPhone Developer documentation and here is an except:

"Document Support
An application can now register the file types it supports with the system and receive notifications when a file of the given type needs to be opened. It does this by including the CFBundleDocumentTypes key in its Info.plist file. An application that registers one or more file types may also be expected to open files of those types at some point later. It does this by implementing the application:didFinishLaunchingWithOptions: method in its application delegate and look for a file in the UIApplicationLaunchOptionsURLKey key of the provided dictionary.

Complimenting the ability to open files of known types is the addition of the UIDocumentInteractionController class in the UIKit framework. This class provides a user-based interaction model for managing files that your application does not know how to open. The document interaction controller provides options for previewing the contents of a file in place or opening it in another application. Document interaction controllers are particularly useful for email applications or applications that may download files from the network."

This works well for a small number of documents, as on the iPhone, but it becomes a problem when working on, say , a project, where it might be desirable to keep all the different document types for the project grouped together. With a conventional file structure it's easy, when the project is done, to archive all the related documents and remove them.

People, stop thinking desktop and big projects.
That's NOT what this thing is for.
The sooner folks get out of that mindset, the sooner they'll get what's going to make this thing such a paradigm shift.

But the document IS sandboxed if you can only open it up in the app environment and not save it somewhere on the filesystem for storage purposes. What if I want to email the file? How will mail attach a document to be sent? Or how do I upload a file through Safari?

Well in iPhoto at least, you just select the file you want to email and click "Email". Do you really think Apple hasn't thought about this stuff? It's what they do.

As for freedom and choice and all of that... there is something called the paradox of choice. The idea is that the MORE choices you have... the LESS free you actually are... because you expend way too much energy trying to understand and sort out all of your millions of choices.

Don't get me wrong... I think geeks and pros will probably always need a full blown OS with a file system and I'm sure that as long as we have that need... such a system WILL exist. But for the average computer idiot... this model is actually a lot more user friendly.

First of all, sandboxing apps is something that security experts have been advising OS providers to do for decades.

Secondly, you didn't really READ my post. If you did, you would see that I don't agree with what you're saying here.

Also, for the third time this thread I'll say that this is just 3.2, not 4.0.

No current computer OS today bares more than a faint resemblance to the early Os's that they began as. This will evolve as well, and much faster than the current desktop versions are. If Apple keeps up with a once a year pace, it won't be too long before we see major enhancments that will take care of most, if not all of your concerns.

No, it's about making the average person's life simpler. And who knows? Perhaps there will eventually be a Finder-like app that allows global navigation into each app's files, much like the Wi-Fi sharing they explained that will take place from iPad to Mac. This is just the beginning.

I have access to iPhone Developer documentation and here is an except:

"Document Support
An application can now register the file types it supports with the system and receive notifications when a file of the given type needs to be opened. It does this by including the CFBundleDocumentTypes key in its Info.plist file. An application that registers one or more file types may also be expected to open files of those types at some point later. It does this by implementing the application:didFinishLaunchingWithOptions: method in its application delegate and look for a file in the UIApplicationLaunchOptionsURLKey key of the provided dictionary.

Complimenting the ability to open files of known types is the addition of the UIDocumentInteractionController class in the UIKit framework. This class provides a user-based interaction model for managing files that your application does not know how to open. The document interaction controller provides options for previewing the contents of a file in place or opening it in another application. Document interaction controllers are particularly useful for email applications or applications that may download files from the network."